stake your acre challenge at the chatelaine's keys

Another great post today by Sharon Astyk, possibly my favorite online writer. She's starting a new challenge: the challenge to take care of an acre of land that isn't your own. My husband has been talking about something like this for a while; we've been looking at buying a house, and he's been pushing for one near an empty lot. The house we found is not next to an empty lot, but there's plenty of uncared-for land in Atlanta. So I'd like to try to take the challenge, once we're settled.

The idea of taking care of land that doesn't belong to you strikes me as a very Christian thing to do--an act of stewardship in its truest sense.

health care reform

Not sure I can add anything to this. Read to the end--especially the bit about peace. Please, everyone, let's remember that.

If you have time, the comments on this post are an interesting read, too. A quote from one: "What you [the blogger] are essentially saying is that you're happy your friends with pre-existing conditions can rip off the rest of us, enslave us to the government, and pay through the nose to support them, and thousands like them."

This commenter opposes the health care bill and is criticizing the blogger for her support of it on behalf of her "friends with pre-existing conditions." I identify a lot with the blogger's position--I was thrilled that the bill passed, not because I need health care (I have a great plan through my husband's employer), but because I have a lot of friends and family members who don't have health care. Some of them have pre-existing conditions. Some of them refuse to go to the doctor for fear or being diagnosed with pre-existing conditions. None of them can afford health care.

Do I want those friends and family members to "rip me off" and force me to "pay through the nose to support them"? Frankly--yes. I can't afford to pay for their health care out of pocket. But I hope that with this bill--or maybe with future, improved iterations of it--my increased taxes will help make health care affordable for them. And honestly, while it would probably be better for my spiritual growth if I were to donate money to them out of the goodness of my heart, most people will give more when they have to. Charities and the church are not meeting this need--if they were, my family members would be going to the doctor right now. I don't think this bill is perfect, not by a long shot, and it remains to be seen how much impact it will really have. I think it will have to be changed. But I also think it's a step in the right direction.

Christian coalition supports climate change bill

The Christian coalition has put out an ad in favor of climate legislation that supports energy alternatives! Which is further proof that you can come at the energy problem from a lot of different angles and still come up with the same solution. Something has got to change.

Listen to the ad here.

The article by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat John Kerry that the ad references is here.

the health bill and our food industry

My husband Matt and I said jokingly the other day that the real solution to our health care problems would be to put a sin tax on Doritos. But apparently Michael Pollan thought of the same thing--and he was serious. He wrote a great piece in which he argues that forbidding insurance companies to drop people from care could be a powerful incentive to change our food subsidies. Because it would mean that for the first time since the corn revolution, there would be a powerful, monied group that had an interest in keeping people healthy. And the simplest way to do that is to improve our diet by dropping corn subsidies and decentralizing our food industry so we eat more local food. And if that were the only accomplishment of this bill, it might be worth it just for that.

health care, taxes, and christian love

I've never written about health care reform here before, partly because it's not an issue I've ever been too concerned about, and partly because I never thought of it as an issue of Christian environmentalism. But as I've watched this debate gain heat over the last few weeks, culminating last night in the president's speech, I'm beginning to change my mind. Health care may not be an environmental issue, although it certainly overlaps. But it is a Christian issue.

My biggest concern after hearing the speech--and, I suspect, many people's biggest concern--is the question of how Obama plans to pay for the changes enacted in this bill. He claims it can be done mostly through savings and without adding any new taxes, other than allowing some tax cuts to run out. I'm neither an economist nor a legislator, but it seems counter-intuitive to me: something this expensive costs money, and governments get money from taxes. That's just the way they work. Government is a non-profit.

And the objection that I've heard over and over again to this plan is the financial aspect. "Why should MY money go to pay YOUR health care?" is the complaint I've heard over and over. And that is where the Christian aspect of this issue comes to the forefront, so that is the question I want to address. Why SHOULD your money pay for someone else's health care?

Do I really need to answer that question?

Hasn't the Bible answered it for me? In passages like Psalm 82:3: "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless." And Proverbs 14:21: "Blessed is he who is kind to the needy." Proverbs 22:16: "He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich--both come to poverty." Isaiah 1:17: "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." Matthew 19:21: "Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." I John 3:17: "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"

How indeed.

Oh, you say, but I want to give money to the poor. I DO give money to the poor. I just want to choose where to give it. I give to my church and to charitable organizations that help provide health care to the poor.

Great. You get a tax deduction on that giving. You don't have to pay twice for other people's health care.

Which brings me to taxes. Americans hate taxes. America was practically founded on a hatred of taxes. I can understand this--I don't like taxes either. I've always believed that government should be as local as possible. But the reality is that private charity isn't covering the need. It isn't solving the problem. It isn't working. And if something isn't working--if there are children dying of preventable diseases--then something needs to change.

And I think the real problem with the argument that so many people make is right there in the question about "my money" going to pay for "your health care."

Because, if you claim to be a Christian, then you ought to believe it's not really your money. In fact, if you look at what Jesus said about taxes, you could argue that it's not even God's money. Jesus said it was Caesar's money. And our bills have pictures of presidents on them too.

By the way, I have health care. Really good health care from a private insurer, supplied at very low cost to us by my husband's job. My coverage is so good that when I go to the doctor, the receptionist always comments on how good my plan is. "Wow," she'll say, "your copay is really low! And you have no deductible! You have a great plan."

And--I'm almost ashamed to admit this, because it's so unfair--but the truth is we don't even need such great care. I've gone to lots of doctors who don't accept any health care and who aren't covered by my plan, but we could afford that. We were able to pay for that. We are nothing like the thousands of people in this country who can't afford to pay for any care at all, let alone paying to choose specialty care.

And so my response to the president's speech is heartfelt. Yes, pass your plan. Offer universal health care. And if you can't cover the cost with spending cuts, then please, raise my taxes to help pay for it. Use "my" money to pay for someone else's health care. I'll consider it money well spent.

agriburbia

Here's a brilliant idea. I've developed an irrational feeling that can best be described as fear of suburbs (suburphobia?) over the past few years. I don't know if it's somehow related to my growing up in the suburbs and my tremendous unpopularity in high school or if it's an inevitable result of living in the city for too long (hence the common Atlanta fear of "OTP" among those of us who live "ITP"). Whatever the reason, I'm actually less afraid of break-ins and broken glass than I am of strip malls and billboards. But this article offers a vision of a suburbia I'd be happy to live in.

happy fourth of july

I've never known quite how to feel about the Fourth. I've always had a hard time understanding patriotism in the context of a country as big as the United States. What does it mean to be patriotic to a country that's a conglomerate of hundreds of languages, ethnicities, and cultures? Patriotism means being loyal to a particular thing, and you can't be loyal to something you don't understand. What does it mean, in essence, to be American?

The cliche answer, of course, is freedom. But the longer I live, the more pessimistic I become about our American idea of freedom. It seems to me to be more rhetoric than reality. Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful for the Constitution and the freedoms we're guaranteed. I understand the difference between, say, freedom of speech--the freedom to write what I'm writing right now, for instance, and not be worried that I'll be arrested for it because it's viewed as a criticism of the government--and the lack of it. I've glimpsed the fear that comes from not knowing what accidental word might get you in trouble, or what neighbor might be spying on you to see if you let slip something that could be subversive. But a guarantee of basic human rights, which is pretty much what our freedoms amount to, does not a country make. Freedom alone does not inspire true patriotism.

It was G.K. Chesterton who made me realize this, because I don't think I ever heard real patriotism expressed by anyone in my own community. I don't think Americans understand what it means to be loyal to something without a reason. For the most part, I think we Americans are loyal for a reason. We are loyal because we like our freedoms and our independence; we like the ideals that our country was founded on. But countries with longer histories can be loyal without reason. Chesterton writes of love without reason, of being patriotic to England simply because she is England. Better yet, he writes of loyalty to a specific place, a place you can really understand because it's small enough to comprehend. He said that the man who lives in one neighborhood his whole life actually understand the stranger on the other side of the world better than the cosmopolitan who has traveled everywhere, because he is concerned with universal concerns that all men share. He is focused on his own home and family; he worries about the rain and the crops and the baby, just as the simple man on the other side of the planet does. He lives in a smaller town, but a larger world. We Americans are all cosmopolitans, and our own world is too big for us to believe in the largeness of the universe.

I feel like I'm dancing around what I'm trying to say here, but what I really mean is this. True patriotism, deep loyalty to place, can only be felt and expressed toward a place that's small enough to understand. America is too big for me to love. I can love Atlanta--though I don't, much, but I'm working on it--or Harrisonburg or maybe even Virginia. I can love a city, maybe a state: a place small enough to have its own character and its own culture. I can admire America, but she's too big for me to really love.

So while I can celebrate the fact that we're no longer a colony of Britain, I find it hard to celebrate America as such. The victories of smaller places will always be sweeter to me.